


Play Me Like a Song

by AshesSnowAndDreamsDeferred, loveinamaltshop



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Improper use of music, M/M, Melolagnia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-06-19 19:30:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15516996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshesSnowAndDreamsDeferred/pseuds/AshesSnowAndDreamsDeferred, https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinamaltshop/pseuds/loveinamaltshop
Summary: It’s the classic story of boy meets boy, and boy, and boy to make music. Except maybe not. Patrick has a problem with the friction in his jeans.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is gonna be a fun ride so strap in and enjoy the show! Hopefully not as much as Patrick does though. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr @ginandkeroscene and my lovely co-conspirator @loveinamaltshop

Patrick always knew that music was a part of him. Essential to his being like air and easy like breathing. It wasn’t until he reached his teens and started exploring himself that he realized just how much sway music held over him. When he started sneaking into shows in the scene Patrick had assumed that the rush in his veins was due to the excitement which wasn’t technically wrong? Just maybe not the entire situation. 

There was just something about sneaking out and presenting his fake ID to the sceptical bouncers that made the whole experience more intense for him, more like he had done something to earn the pulse of heat wracking his body that had absolutely nothing to do with the crowded clubs. Of course, Patrick was a musician himself, but he played for his own pleasure. It wasn’t the same as giving himself over to it, riding the emotion and bearing witness to a killer guitar riff and feeling a kick drum replace his heart while a raw voice sent shivers down his spine. 

By the time he realized that the stirring in his veins translated to a stirring in his pants, well, by that point it was too late and Patrick was in far too deep. 

A red hot flush ran up his neck, making his eyelids droop heavy and his jaw fall open. Easily, it just looked like he was getting lost in the music, the thrumming bass and the grating vocals. But it wasn’t excited energy making his body pulse to the beat. It was a restless, helpless almost, sensation in the way his fingers curled into his palms, itching for touch and some sort of... _ release.  _

He looks down at himself amidst the bodies, careful not to make any sudden movements or unnecessary contact with anyone else. He was undeniably hard under his fairly loose jeans, from where he could see in the scarce lighting of the venue. A body crashes into his and he has to shut his eyes tight, digging his nails into his palm. His skin is oversensitive, like he’s sunburnt, like every touch has a direct line to his groin. If his strikingly young face didn’t give it away, it was definitely the awkward way he was turning away from the other patrons so urgently.

There are a few odd looks shot his way, a raised pierced eyebrow and a neon-green sneer so he ducks away from the crowd. He’s whispering panicked  _ what’s happening what’s happenings  _ to himself when he bypasses a group of guys laughing outside the bathrooms. One shoots him a look and Patrick has to look away, feeling a fresh batch of sweat coat the back of his neck, staining his already soaked neckline. He knows it’s completely normal to have these thoughts, these  _ dirtier  _ thoughts — he had, begrudgingly, received that talk from his mom — but the waves of urgency made the second of eye contact seem like a proposition to Patrick.

So Patrick shoves the thought to the back of his head, slams the bathroom door as hard as the closer will allow, and runs to the sink. He’s breathing heavy for someone who has been standing in the middle of a crowd for barely five minutes. He can still hear the bass, shaking the walls, in time with the heartbeat in his ears. It feels like the sound is curling around him, contributing to the heat low on his belly. He turns on the tap, feels cool water over shaky hands. It doesn’t do much but he’s distracted, at least, in the way it echoes. He catches sight of himself in the mirror. 

He looks  _ wrecked,  _ to put it in any way lightly. He’s pink high on his cheeks and down his neck, probably over his chest. He squeezes his eyes shut and runs his water-cooled hands over his face. Fuck this, whatever was going on. 

Sighing, with no other choice than to go back outside and enjoy what he snuck in for, he reaches down to adjust the visible bulge in his pants. He hisses at the contact.  _ Every  _ part of him is heated, on edge, practically. He’s half sure he’s going to pass out from the blood making its way down south and he knows,  _ knows,  _ he’ll get caught because of this. He unleashes the protocol train of thought — grandma waxing her legs, Fox News, math homework, the fucked up things they do at SeaWorld — 

To no avail. He’s still hard when he hears the band switch over to a song with a louder, angrier bashing of drums that makes his cock  _ twitch  _ under his hand. This is when he realizes his hand hasn’t left the front of his jeans. 

His mind is racing, his head reeling and Patrick reflexively rolls his hips into the pressure of his hand with a bitten off moan. He can’t be doing this here, he knows. But… he casts a glance at the door and shakily reaches over to click the lock. Maybe he could indulge himself. Just this once. It’s not as if anyone would hear him over the band anyway. Besides, he’s  _ so hard.  _

He palms himself firmly through the rough denim of his jeans before popping the button-fly and slipping his hand inside. As he wraps his hand around the solid heat of his prick the vocalist of the band lets out a raw scream that has Patrick’s knees buckling. He grips the edge of the counter to avoid collapsing and gives himself a rough stroke. It’s definitely not the first time he’s jacked off but usually it’s in the comfort and absolute privacy of his bedroom and not an absolutely disgusting restroom of a seedy club he’d illegally gotten into. Somehow the locale makes it simultaneously horrifying and the hottest thing ever. 

The drums pick up again and Patrick feels it like a punch to the gut. He fists his cock and it’s dry, just on this side of painful. His skin is prickling and gets impossibly more sensitive. His body is one steady intense throb and he strokes himself with desperation. 

His fist tightens around himself, swallowing as he does. He twists his wrist in time with the refrain picking up in a crescendo and a delicious shiver runs through his spine before he can stop himself. He’s watching his own eyes, the usual blue taken over by the overblown black of his pupils, scanning his own face. His bottom lip is red, still tender over how much he had to bite down when he was out on the floor. A moan crackles out of him, and it’s lost in the music that’s flowing through his ears. No one would have heard him, but another shiver ripples through him at the thought that  _ they could have. _

It takes Patrick breathing against the mirror, fogging it up to obscure he was looking and the lingering bassline at the tail end of the song for Patrick to spurt, thick and hot into his boxers. It makes his thighs shake and his forearm braces itself on the counter at this point. Any and all lower body strength seems to leave him when he pumps his oversensitive cock through it, squeezing where he feels it pulse against his palm. He hears the vocalist talk into the microphone but it’s barely audible with how hard Patrick’s raggedly panting, whimpering as the aftershocks make his thighs tremble. 

_ What just happened?  _ invades his head as soon as he catches his breath. He scowls upon pulling up his now sticky boxers, followed by his jeans. He hears the next band setting up as he’s washing his hands, and his body seems to calm down, light years from the consuming arousal he had felt just minutes ago. There’s a relief that hits him that it’s gone, and that he’s back with a clearer head and considerably erection free.

At this point though, Patrick is considerably spooked and feels the strong urge to turn tail and run. Who the hell gets a raging hard on from listening to a shitty band of greasy college kids? Patrick apparently. He sincerely hopes that this is a one-off. 

He unlocks the door and sticks his head out shyly before leaving the bathroom and even if Patrick is positive that no one overheard his little self love session, he can’t shake off the feeling that someone  _ knows.  _ Not that his ginger behavior and mussed appearance do much to help in that regard. He meets a pair of brown eyes and a shiny grin and decides that yeah, he’s done for the night. He’s not going to be able to enjoy the rest of the show with the sick yet satisfied feeling heavy in the pit of his stomach.  

He slips out the door and into the substantially quieter night to head home while trying very deliberately to think of something that is  **not** basslines and shivery hot feelings. When he gets home he creeps directly into the bathroom to shower off the grime and again avoid what happened. It’s something to deal with another time, or if he’s lucky, never. 

The hot water against his skin is enough to make him forget sweaty bodies and noise twisting at his limbs and insides. He wraps a towel around his waist, rubbing at the mirror covered in steam to brush his teeth. He doesn’t look any different. He definitely doesn’t look like a sexual deviant of any sort. He wouldn’t suspect that this pale dude of five foot three (and a half) totally just got off to semi-decent garage band covers of blink-182. 

By the time his hair’s halfway dry and he has an old gym shirt and boxers on, the only rationalization he comes up with is the excitement that came with sneaking out late, then into shows he had to use a fake ID that was  _ complicated  _ to procure, and being surrounded by a much older crowd he was  _ sure  _ wasn’t from his high school. 

When he lays down and flicks his bedside light off he can’t stop his mind from wandering. Initially just to boring things like whether or not he could convince his mom to let him borrow the car and an upcoming test in his history class but that didn’t last long. Unbidden he thinks of the club and how out of control he felt. Further research needed he decides before forcefully shoving his face into his pillow and shutting his mind off. 

That night he dreams of nothing and he wakes to the smell of breakfast cooking downstairs. Patrick groans sleepily and peeks at his alarm clock. The time 8:47 AM blinks cheerfully back at him. Too early to exist on a weekend. He rolls over with a huff and tugs his comforter up over his head. He must doze off again because the next time he comes to his mom is rapping politely on his doorframe and trying to coax him out of bed. 

“It’s time to wake up Ricky, I made pancakes!” Patricia beams “you can’t spend the whole day in bed.”

“Wh’n’t?” He grumbles and eyes the smiley form of his mom. 

“Because I said so. Now come eat and then I need you to run some errands for me. After that you can do whatever you want.”

Patrick pretends to think about it before he leaves his soft bedding to get dressed. He can handle a few errands. He tugs a beanie over the rat’s nest he calls hair and makes his way downstairs to get his marching orders for the day and enjoy his breakfast. 

Sufficiently stuffed and his mom’s keys in hand he makes his way to the supermarket to pick up the short list of groceries and it goes as well as a trip to the supermarket can go. He smiles shyly at the cute girl stocking the boxed Mac n Cheese and she raises a sarcastic eyebrow that kills all the friendly vibes he was feeling. 

He tosses some Velveeta into the cart and power walks towards the checkout lanes, his footsteps sounding overly loud against the scuffed linoleum. He makes a face at the slow line and queues up with a put upon sigh. He swears, every store, no matter what, anytime he’s the one doing the shopping, there’s only ever the minimum number of check out lanes functioning. 

With nothing better to do he reads the shitty tabloids and waits. He wrinkles his nose at  _ ET Gave Me a Sex Change  _ and glances over  _ My Rabbit Ate My Sister’s Soul  _ before landing on  _ Strange Sex: Trumpets Make Me Horny.  _ He feels panic lance through him and remembers last night’s escapade. He feels sick. Before he can rethink it he tosses the magazine onto the belt with a pack of gum alongside the other groceries. 

The cashier is a teenager with a bored expression that looks like he thankfully  _ doesn’t  _ go to his school, but does cock his head in mild interest when he rings up Patrick’s last-minute purchase before it’s bagged. 

Patrick pretends to be absolutely  _ riveted _ by the membership club card the store offers. He near-slams the fifty his mom gave him for the groceries, and looks back at the mechanics of acquiring the card before he’s handed back his change. Being five foot three (and a damn  _ half)  _ doesn’t grant him much dignity when he continues to power walk right out of the store. If it wasn’t embarrassing to think that the guy at the counter managed to read his mind about potentially getting off to brass instruments, it was the fact he was under fifty and reading the  _ Glenview Tattler.  _

He straps in the bag of groceries into the passenger seat and heads home. He doesn’t say much to his mom, who’s watching some sort of Lifetime marathon. Patrick shudders despite himself. His own situation was starting to feel like one. He stuffs the magazine into his coat without a word and stomps upstairs at the most normal pace. Okay, he knows it’s not like,  _ Playboy  _ or whatever but the less questions and odd looks he has to deal with today, the better. 

He heads straight to his bed, dog earing a few admittedly interesting articles that weren’t, okay, relevant but he at least had to make the most out of this trashy periodical, alright?

The same text from the cover blares across two pages. Badly shopped photos fill up half a page and he can’t help but snicker. There’s a visual pun with horns that is way too clever. No wonder these rags were still in business. He remembers he’s here in the name of scientific research and reads on.

_ Birds do it, bees do it — but for one Illinois native, it happens to be done at dive bars and stadium concerts. One melophile (who has chosen to remain anonymous) has admitted to near-uncontrollable bouts of sexual excitement when they attend live musical performances. _

“Holy fuck.” He breathes and clenches the magazine tighter, feeling his heart rate pick up.

_ “It’s out of body, really,” was the sheepish answer “Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m enjoying it by  _ that  _ much.” This particularly intense music lover admits to suffer — or otherwise — from a condition called melolagnia. “It isn’t a disease, you know,” they were quick to defend “More like a quirk. Like how people get excited over feet.” _

He makes a disgusted face. Feet are fucking disgusting, why would anyone equate the rush of a concert to sucking on crusty toes? But, he digresses. Then he catches sight of the anonymous interviewees symptoms and starts a mental checklist against his own experience from last night. 

_ While popping untimely erections and sneaking in back rooms isn’t anything new in the music scene, it’s the increase in libido, touch oversensitivity, lightheadedness, and general body aches that distinguishes melolagnia from your average concert high.  _

_ “You have to release it is the thing,” said our informant. “Or you could learn how to control it, like I did.” _

_ We asked how they did just that. _

_ “Like everything,” they shrugged “Putting it in the right place at the right time. Also having first dates at gigs very sparingly.” _

Patrick feels like the rug has been ripped right out from under his feet and goes through the five stages of grief in a flash. He chokes on a desperate giggle and tosses the magazine across the room. But at least he’s not alone, and he takes immense comfort in that thought, even if the other person is some rando Patrick will never see or speak to. 

He’s only sixteen! He had always assumed that any out of the box kinks would come sometime in his twenties and thirties, after a committed relationship and a mortgage, when life generally goes stale. He is very much not in any need to spice up his life and he wonders briefly if he can pack this shit in an airtight box and mail it back to God or the sex shop or wherever it came from. 

Then the frustration sets in. So what if last night he’d been so turned on that he couldn’t see straight? He wasn’t going to let something like  _ melolagnia  _ stop him from getting out into the scene and enjoying himself! He just might need to take a few precautions the next time around. Who was to say it would happen again anyway? Maybe it was a one and done situation. Further testing was needed. If he had another episode at the next show, well… he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. He repeated the delusion to himself until he believed it. 

Appropriately calmed he hid the magazine in his desk drawer and made his way downstairs to talk to his mom for a while. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The worst part of getting unnecessarily aroused by music is the post-orgasm logistics once you’re locked in the van.

By the time he closes his mouth at the last note, Joe and Pete are silent. 

Pete looks at Joe, who has a wide grin spreading slowly across his face. The fucker said he had a feeling about this kid and he wasn’t wrong.

“Look, um,” the kid, Patrick, exhales, a little too nervously. He’s slipped his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, staring at the couch Pete and Joe are occupying. “Like I said, I’m not really a singer. If you want to see me do something else on the drums, I can—”

“Shut your hole, man” Joe says, pointing Patrick’s stray drumstick at him. “He’s totally in, right, Pete?”

Patrick turns to stare at Pete. It’s kind of funny, the look he shoots him. It’s not unlike the one Joe gave him when he asked him to fill in for Arma. It’s adorable. He has a faint blush high on his cheeks that unquestionably complement the red of his mouth, where Pete has  _ definitely  _ not been staring. And if he was, it was for the very purpose of artistic nuance. The kid’s cute and maybe not quite rough around the edges like the usual guys in Pete’s other bands, but it’s not like he has the same plan for this one. 

This was his golden ticket being waved in front of him for the taking. 

So he nods at Patrick, knowing he’d already overused a second of suspense because he’s kicking his toes back and staring at the floor. “You’re in, dude. Blood pact is tonight.”

“Fuck.” Patrick grins, wide, eyes bright enough to light a city. “Thank you, guys. Fuck, for real?”

Pete laughs every time he drops the expletive. It’s hilarious coming from him, someone miraculously shorter than him and looks three years younger than he claims. His excitement, his smile, it’s all so contagious. Pete can’t believe  _ he’s  _ real.

“Yeah. For real.” Pete shrugs, turns to Joe, who has an overtly smug look on his face. “Welcome to the band. We practice at Joe’s.”

It’s not lost on him that Patrick’s hands are balled into fists at his side. The faint blush from earlier evolves into a red that creeps into his collar. Damn. The kid’s  _ really  _ excited, then. Pete couldn’t wait to figure out what he was like onstage. 

“I’m deathly afraid of needles,” is blurted out from Patrick. Pete can feel Joe glaring in his direction.

“There’s no blood pact,” Joe reassures him. “Welcome to the band.” 

The weeks pass in a rush accompanied by a revolving door of guitarists and drummers. Patrick has some integrity, and he was firm on the point of having a competent drummer and a second guitarist. After a few months of being unable to keep band mates for one reason or another, it’s decided that Patrick will provide rhythm guitar along with vocals and he’s more than happy with that. He’s still not sure he’s a singer and this makes it so he can hide behind his shitty guitar on stage. 

Joe clears his throat from the doorway to the basement and Patrick looks up from the plate of vegetarian nachos he and Pete are sharing. 

“Why, hello Joseph!” Pete says gaily and takes Patrick’s momentary distraction to steal the last chip. The singer makes note of that and decides petty retribution can wait as Joe looks like he’s not far from an aneurysm. 

“Hey Joe.” He phrases it like a question. Out of the three of them, Joe is the most even tempered but he’s a bitch when he’s angry. Patrick has a feeling he’s the reason. 

“Patrick.” He grits and paces into the room to sit in his customary spot in the ratty armchair. “You have successfully chased off every drummer in the scene that was willing to work with us. What was wrong with Bradley?”

“We didn’t like his attitude, did we Trick?” Pete beams and throws an arm across Patrick’s shoulders. 

He nods resolutely. “He was a dick, and he disrespected my kit!” 

“Uh huh.” Joe sighs “Well now that he’s out, once again, thank you Patrick, what do you suppose we do about not having a drummer?”

They’re all silent, Joe still pissy. 

“Well…” Pete starts

“What?”

“We could always ask Hurley again?”

Joe and Patrick laugh, it’s an old conversation. As if the best drummer in the scene would take time for their rag tag little group. Pete has already brought the idea up with Andy more than once, and each time he’s been shot down. Why would asking one more time turn out different?

“Sure Pete, if you think Andy Hurley will drum for us, go ahead and ask. Don’t be bummed when he says no again.” Patrick smiled and lightly nudged Pete’s shoulder. 

“You’ll see! Nobody can resist the Wentz charm.”

“Except for the people who know you.” Joe chimed.

Pete rolls his eyes and huffs. “I’ll just invite him over for practice. He needs to see what we’re made of.” 

* * *

It’s the first time Andy’s over at Patrick’s to help them out with a song they’re figuring out. This is, of course, the right thing to say to Andy to actually get him to physically come over. Pete figures Andy’s like a chick — you gotta be romantic with these things. Take it slow, all that. Andy’s face parallel to Pete’s grinning one says that Andy sees right past that bullshit.

It also dawns upon Pete that Patrick has never actually met Andy Hurley. He didn’t expect Patrick to have practically pinned his friend, peering nervously at Pete, against the door and raving about his technique, his intensity, and even his goddamn  _ versatility  _ or something.

Patrick isn’t one to get particularly enthusiastic or excited, choosing to keep cool when given the choice, so when Pete glances over at Joe plucking restlessly at a string, they give each other a look. Talent can find talent, they figure. It was just kind of cute to see this kid bouncing on his heels at some dude Pete’s known since he was a teenager. 

Andy places a hand on Patrick’s shoulder and says, “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.”

Pete and Joe end up laughing into each other’s shoulders at the look on Patrick’s face. They only end up laughing harder at the subsequent one Patrick shoots them.

“So are you guys going to show me what a real band looks like or what?” Andy grins, shaking his head. 

* * *

A real band, Pete finds out, is one he hasn’t been in for the longest time. It’s Andy agreeing to join after several hours of practice sessions, a show, and maybe just a little bit of Patrick’s buttering up. Pete may be half in love with him already just for that. 

Patrick’s a fidgety little dude when they play, constantly restless, but clearly too shy to act on any impulse. Or something. His leg would kick and bops as he kept his guitar in front of him stationary. Pete paid no mind at all to that. What he did to, though, was the way he’d rush off, slap Joe and him a high five, give Andy a tight grin and a nod before he rushed off the stage. 

For the first tour they do as a band, all aboard Joe’s shitty van, Pete does the  _ goodnights  _ or the  _ we love yous  _ to the crowd. Pete figures it makes sense that he gets to do them, being more used to the crowds and performing. Patrick will grow into it. Lead singers equal frontmen, right? The shitty venues deserved to hear Patrick telling them he loves them or to have a great night or something just as sexy. Instead, he carried a seemingly panicked energy. 

Okay, stage fright, totally normal, especially since he’s used to being in Andy’s place, behind a drum set.

Fortunately, it seems to wane at after they’ve got their record deal. All this talk about royalties and music videos is starting to make Pete’s head spin. Basement shows just become stages that look like they won’t collapse on themselves. They’re paid in checks and not crumpled notes with cigarette burnt corners. And Patrick, whose voice is trained, sounding more man than boy now, some threshold between seventeen and eighteen, their first record without Andy to the first show they garnered over a hundred audience members, still stutters over goodnights, but says them anyway.

It makes Pete pretty damn proud that his lead singer is starting to act like one. 

“Patrick, hey!” Pete breathes out, visible fog escaping his mouth. It’s their first show since they’ve announced their record (their  _ record.  _ Not a shitty mixtape!) and it’s too much riding on them. The label guys said not to worry about it too much, to just be themselves because they’re perfect the way they are. Pete’s always seen past the veneer most people uphold so he definitely questions it, but he hasn’t had a shot this big so he’s not too fluent on label speak just yet. 

“Hey,” Patrick breathes out, eyes wide. He looks kind of like a sexy deer. Deer could be sexy, right?

“Where you going? I figured you could come in the green room and warm up,” Pete grins, pulling his coat tighter around his frame. God, it was  _ freezing.  _ “The opening act’s pretty good, if you were planning on watching.”

“Uh,” Patrick starts, and his eyes dart to look at Pete and the van. “They are. They’re really good.”

“Don’t worry, honey, I still only have eyes and ears for you,” Pete winks, hands buried in his jean pockets. “Seriously, I don’t think you should make a big deal out of this show. It’s not  _ officially  _ promotional.”

Patrick nods, but hey, what do they know about PR and marketing? Pete’s face softens and takes a step closer. Patrick’s heel scuffs the wheel behind him.

“We’re what people came to see, okay, buddy?” Pete smiles kindly, a rare one he shares, and he catches Patrick’s shoulders lower at the sight of it. “But I get it. I used to get stage fright too. It, uh, didn’t stay with me this long, that’s for sure, but to each their own, right?”

“Right,” Patrick nods. Pete feels a familiar wave of anxiety pool in his stomach. What the fuck was up with Patrick? Was he intimidated by the opening band or something? Did they suck? They objectively didn’t, so whatever was up with Patrick, it was just plain rude. 

He catches Patrick pulling at ends of his hair to overlap his ears. His hair was getting too long but Pete was hardly the type to chastise Patrick about it. He wasn’t his  _ mom.  _ That thought was just all around nasty, especially since he found Patrick to be kind of hot in a non-Joe kind of way. 

Patrick is still looking helplessly at the venue, jaw slack for a second. “Pete, they’re just.  _ Really  _ good,” he practically moans and whoa, okay. They all loved music here but it was hard to discern if his tone was tinged with misery or something else. Malice, almost? Did Patrick genuinely dislike this band? Did they say something to his Patrick without him knowing? “They really sound like the real deal. I have no idea what the vocalist is saying, though.”

“Right? I swear, if he could just sing anything relatively coherent, they’d be pretty—” 

“Orgasmic.”

Pete pauses, purses his lips and shrugs. “Sure.” 

Patrick looks a lot calmer now, an easy smile as he digs his sneaker into the gravel. It’s hard not to smile at Patrick when he’s not freaking out over venue call times or whatever. Pete instinctively pulls the grey knit cap off his head and pulls it over Patrick’s, tucking his earlobes under the garter. 

He looks at Pete in mild confusion when he steps back, observes his handiwork. Pete’s hand reaches over, lowers the brim. Strands of strawberry blond (not red or auburn, Pete’s decided, not that it was something he actively debated internally) gather right above his eyelashes. Patrick blinks in irritation and brushes them away.

“For good luck,” Pete says. “Also so you don’t have to see so much of the crowd. I know the stage lights hurt your eyes and your eyesight’s fucked as it is.”

Patrick rolls his supposedly fucked up eyes but he laughs. “That’s, I mean, that’s alright. Thanks for the hat. I think.”

“He speaks!” Pete says in faux awe. “But can he sing? We’re on in five.”

Patrick lowers his head, fingers brushing over the wool that’s covering his ears and nods. He paints an unfairly pretty picture. Pete doesn’t think about that, they’ve got a show to play and label execs hanging in the balcony to impress. “Yeah. ‘Course I can.”

“There’s my heartbreaker,” Pete says giddily. The grey looks good against Patrick’s hair, looks better on him than it ever did on Pete. It’s unsaid that it’s Patrick’s now. “Let’s go. We’ve got a world to rule in there.” 

They walk back into the venue side by side, shoulders bumping, the casual touches almost like recharging. Excitement and determination jump back and forth between Pete and Patrick like a feedback loop until their hearts are soaring.

* * *

They meet Joe and Andy backstage and slap a quick high five as they’re announced. Nerves creep back under Patrick’s skin as Pete talks to the crowd (oh god there are so many people what the hell), but settle into the pit of his stomach when Andy clicks off.

Everything is going better than they expected. The crowd is into it, screaming and swarming the stage.  _ Switchblades  _ is up first and he’s trying his best to sink into it, followed by  _ Pretty in Punk.  _ Surprisingly, Pete’s hat is actually helping. Obviously, everyone can see him but between his guitar, the hat and the comforting presence of his band around him, he feels hidden. As comfortable as he could possibly feel in this situation. Despite himself, he’s actually loosening up and enjoying himself. When Pete notices he shoots the singer a blinding grin. 

However, this brings up a whole new issue, one he was dealing with during the opening band’s set. Over the years Patrick has gotten a much better grip on himself and the melolagnia, he wouldn’t be able to play if he hadn’t, but here and now, it’s difficult.  _ Mick  _ isn’t a particularly sexy song but by the time they get through it, the buzzing, itchy, tingly feeling Patrick associates with his ‘quirk’ is getting to be a problem. By the time they get through  _ Saturday _ , his voice and his knees are wobbling. Between the screaming from the crowd and the rush in his veins from playing the music he helped to bring to life, he’s painfully hard. His shitty guitar is slung low and pressed vice tight against his hips in an attempt to hide and dissuade his erection. It doesn’t help that much. 

They finish with a flourish and it all fades to nothing, lost in the screams. Patrick can’t really hear anything over his pulse throbbing. He’s vaguely aware of a camera flash and Pete giving the standard good nights. The lights go down and Patrick is  _ gone _ . He puts his guitar up a bit more roughly than he intended and sprints through the club. 

_ Van, van, van, gotta get to the van!  _ He thinks and dives for the door. He throws himself inside and slams the door. He lands funny on his elbow and has to dig a book out of his ribs, but he doesn’t slow. He has time now to get rid of his not so little friend. Momentarily he feels bad that the guys have to clean up without him, but Patrick has more pressing issues to attend to.

Speaking of pressing, his dick is straining against his jeans and it’s beyond painful at this point. He undoes the button-fly and wiggles his jeans and boxers down just enough to free his erection. 

It’s an immense relief and he immediately starts desperately fisting his angrily red prick. There’s no time for gentleness or taking his time, he’s going to lose his mind if he doesn’t come soon. 

He gasps helplessly, thanking god that he has the van all to himself and not a cramped bathroom. He has the sealed shut doors, the locks, the  _ distance  _ away from the band and anyone else who would, no question, laugh at the idea of some eighteen year old kid beating off in the back of one of his friends’ van. Okay, so tinted windows were sort of a luxury and the parking lot was as well lit as the venue was  _ not _ but he shut his eyes, bit down on his lip and strokes as efficiently as possible.

His feet plant on the bottom of the van, pushing himself up. He sits up against the back of the chairs in the middle because he needs to feel  _ some  _ sense of dignity. He faces the windowed doors and for a moment, swears he sees a streetlamp turn away in disgust. 

Remembering the crashing cymbals make his skin feel like it’s constricting against him. Like, he really does not need to think of Andy in that way but he’s just so fucking  _ talented.  _ He remembers practically jumping his bones when he knew that Andy Hurley, the most talented drummer in the state-wide radius, wanting to play for their band.  _ Their  _ band. He knows he’s gotten that excitement down well enough that it only manages to come off as residual hero worship but.  _ Whatever.  _ Joe was something of a prodigy, effortless riffs that crawled under Patrick’s skin and vibrated with him. It was wholly unfair and Patrick could only watch in silent, poker-faced awe as he positioned his guitar in front of him during practice. 

He tips his head back, dick wrapped around his fist. He knows the van’s shaking but no one’s going to be out soon, especially if he’s economical about it. He lets out a moan that he usually isn’t able to make in his room back home or motel bathrooms with the guys. It sends a shiver down his spine, how the sound bounces off the walls of the van. He tips his head back further, the knit cap Pete gave him on his head slipping off his head. 

The brim falls over his eyes and lower down and  _ fuck.  _ There was the weird mix of the smell of Pete’s shampoo, his own sweat, but mostly remembering Pete’s big grin when he plopped it on his head. Pete, he knew, objectively wasn’t phenomenal when it came to the bass. It wasn’t exactly something he was known for. If anything, it was licking the strings of it and onstage antics. Things Patrick knew he’d never bring himself to do, even if you paid him. 

It was just that Pete still played the parts Patrick told him to, every note, while Patrick sang his words, making every note and line feel like a deep, rumbling affirmation. It wasn’t anything Patrick ever felt, and wasn’t quite sure if it had a name, but it electrified his skin, in the familiar way music did. Patrick was burning with it. 

He fucks up into his fist, inhaling deeply. Really, it was some level of creepy to be smelling the hat of your bandmate lent you while you jacked off with his mediocre bass playing echoing in your ears. Patrick couldn’t care less, and the thought evaporated as soon as his next breath as the ring of his fist twisted slightly, index finger ghosting the slit. 

His eyes shut and the hat falls somewhere on the floor, right next to sweat droplets and possibly some of Patrick’s remaining reservation. His whimpers fill up the empty van, where he travels and sleeps with three other guys, the thought of  a specific  _ one _ making his balls tighten, and belly fill with heat. 

His jaw widens as he’s gasping for air, feeling the hot, sharp-smelling come hit his knuckles before anything. He runs his free hand through the mess of his sweaty hair, fingers tightening around it, as he continues to pump the rest of his orgasm out of his dick. It slides down his fingers and onto the cold floor of the van. 

Hot and slippery quickly become sticky and gross. He is now debating where to clean his hand. The worst part of getting unnecessarily aroused by music is the post-orgasm logistics once you’re locked in the van. He swears softly, knowing he  _ definitely  _ should have listened to his mom to bring baby wipes on tour with them.

There’s a gross-beyond-redemption shirt he finds in the very bottom of his backpack when he hears the unmistakable sound of rubber hitting gravel. Someone nearby is running. His skin goes cold and his legs feel too much like jelly to stand up and check.  _ Please do not call the police _ , Patrick drafts his plea in his head as he wipes spunk from between his fingers,  _ I have so much to live for. _

The second he regains half of the mind he busted, among other things, whoever it was is out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! We hope you enjoyed this chapter and if you did, please leave a kudos or a comment! They're super appreciated and bring us unspeakable joy. You can also hit us up [loveinamaltshop](http://loveinamaltshop.tumblr.com) or [ginandkeroscene](http://ginandkeroscene.tumblr.com) on Tumblr. <3


End file.
